Sunday, April 28, 2013

Al decided that
the best thing to do with me for the time being was to take me to his place. I
got a little excited to see what a statue’s house might look like. My mind
entertained itself with all kinds of possibilities, from Grecian-style temples
to Pueblo-style kivas to medieval castles. When we approached a tall but
humble-looking wooden hut, I was a bit disappointed. “This is where you live?”
I asked him.

“Yep, this is it,”
Al said, cracking a stony smile. “Cozy, isn’t it?”

“It looks like a
human shack,” I said. “I’m surprised. I expected a lot more stone.”

“You’ll see the
stone when you get inside,” he said, and pushed the door open with his hands—I
couldn’t tell if this was because it was unlocked, or because he was strong
enough to push through the lock. I would’ve asked, but I had a more pressing
question: “Are you going to attempt to feed me stone food? Because if that’s
all you have, don’t bother. I like my teeth too much.”

“Statues
don’t eat,” he said, “so I’m afraid I have nothing to feed you, not even stone
food. Stone food would only add more stone to me, and I would lose my lovely
shapely form and become a bulking slab of rock. How terrible that would be!” He
strolled over to a wall mirror (made of glass, bordered with stone) and smiled
at his reflection. He was one of those
cocky bastards.

I
had a seat on the stone couch. “We humans have that issue too,” I said. “We
call it ‘getting fat.’” I took a look around. Everything was made of stone
except for the TV. Even the lamps were made of stone. I suppose it was only a
pure technicality that the house wasn’t also made of stone.

There
was something else not made of stone that caught my eye: an Internet modem!
“You have an Internet connection?!” I
asked in total disbelief.

“Doesn’t
everybody?” he replied.

I
jumped up. “If you have an Internet connection, then that means I can try to
contact my friends…my boyfriend…please
let me use your computer!!”

“It’s worth a
shot,” I said. “The Internet can do some pretty amazing things, after all.”

“Well,” Al said,
“you’re welcome to try. The computer is in my room, down the hall and to the
left.”

I followed his
directions. Instead of seeing a giant bed like I’d expected to see, I saw
another pedestal like the one he’d been standing on out by the farmhouses. Of course, I thought, a statue wouldn’t sleep in a bed. His
computer was on a giant desk with a giant chair. I could climb up in the giant
chair—it was a lot like climbing a tree—but I couldn’t manage to use the giant
keyboard. I sighed, climbed back down, and headed back to the living room.

“Al?”

“Mmhm?”

“That keyboard is far too big for me. Can I have a sheet
of paper, or are your pens gigantic too?”

Al opened a drawer
and produced a reasonably-sized sheet of paper and a pen that was big, but not
too big for me to hold. “Thanks,” I said. First, I wrote Erma, Sunita, Dirk, and
Mel’s email addresses at the top. Then, I wrote what I wanted to send:

Mel/Erma/Sunita/Dirk,

I woke up this morning in this strange
place. I’m stuck here and I have no clue how to get home, and nobody here knows
where Turnersville is. I’m a bit freaked out. Please email me back as soon as
you can. I don’t have my phone with me. I am NOT trolling!!!

-Lynn

I handed the paper
to Al. “Please send this message to the email addresses I wrote at the top,” I
told him. Al nodded. “Will do,” he said. He disappeared into his room, and I
climbed back up on the stone couch to keep myself occupied by channel surfing.
I wondered what kind of TV show a statue would watch.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

There happened to be a deer nearby
the creek, across from the grave she’d made for that guy—too close by to be
able to cross the creek without scaring it away, but just the right distance
for a well-aimed rifle shot. Lily told me she didn’t want to actually watch me
shoot the deer—in fact, the thought of it turned her pale and made her face
crumple up like she was sick. I didn’t expect her to want to watch me shoot it.
She isn’t like me, not in the slightest. I wondered if watching the deer die
would make her cry like she did when I killed that guy last night (was it only
last night? Why does it feel like so damn long ago?). It was only a deer, but
she’d probably start crying anyway. I wondered if she even ate any meat.

But there was no way for her to get
back to the camp without making noise and scaring the deer. I had to tell her
to turn around and close her eyes, and if she was going to cry she had best
save it for after I made the shot. She nodded, looking sick again, then turned
around and threw her hands over her face. She didn’t make a sound. I’d be lying
if I said I wasn’t mildly impressed.

One shot, and the deer became our
meal. I set my rifle down, palmed my blade, and crossed the creek on foot. Lily
had turned around and was watching me. I pretended I didn’t know it, but I felt
a mild surge of pride. Nobody had ever actually watched me in action
before—they never got the chance to. I must say, it was a very good feeling to
have an audience. The pride made me a bit silly in the head, and I twirled
around a few times before taking a big, goofy, dramatic bow. She laughed like I
was some TV comedian. I felt myself turning red and tried to hide it.

I knelt down by the deer and began
cutting slabs off of it. I expected Lily to turn around again, but she didn’t
seem so disturbed about it now that the thing was dead. Without a word, she
watched as I cut up the slabs, slipped my blade into the pocket of my wet
jeans, and haul the slabs to my shoulders. As I started to cross back over,
Lily waded over to me and took a few of the slabs off of my shoulders.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Lolita’s hair was very light blonde,
almost white. She kept it in two big pigtails that were tied with two bows. The
color of the bows varied by day—sometimes she wore blue bows, sometimes pink,
sometimes red. But Lolita always wore bows of some color, every day. Lolita’s
skin was as white as marble. Her twin often teased her by saying she looked
like a ghost.

Rurita’s hair was night black. It
was long and curly and kept in ringlets that felt to her shoulders. On some
days the ringlets hung loose, and on some days they were tied in a ponytail.
But Rurita always wore ringlets in some form, every day. Rurita’s skin was
tinted pearly pink. Her twin often teased her by saying she was as pink as a
salmon.

Rurita and Lolita acted nothing alike;
Lolita was sweet, delicate, and demure, and Rurita was mischevious, bold, and
often very loud. But the most iconic difference between the two of them was
Rurita’s very strange and very bad habit: Rurita liked to throw things.
Anything she got her hands on, she would throw: books, rocks, dolls, ceramics,
and even kitchen appliances. She once nearly knocked her friend Annabell
unconscious by throwing a blender at her (thankfully, Annabell ducked, and the
only thing hurt was the poor blender).

Rurita never threw anything with the
intention of hurting anyone. She only threw things because she couldn’t help
herself; everything she laid eyes on seemed to be saying, “Throw me, Rurita!
Throw me! Please pick me up and throw me!” And Rurita would oblige, because she
found it very rude to ignore an object’s request to be thrown. Unfortunately,
no one else that Rurita knew felt this way, and nobody liked being in the path
of flying objects. This is why everybody liked Lolita and nobody liked Rurita.
And this is why Rurita was a very lonely young woman.

Naturally, Rurita didn’t like this,
and she knew that the only way to get people to like her was to stop her habit
of throwing things. But the only way to do that was to get the things to stop
asking to be thrown. What makes something
want to be thrown? she wondered. She understood that would never know
unless she asked.

Rurita approached the pillow on her
bed. “Hey, Rurita!” the pillow said. “I’m so glad you’re finally here! I’ve
been waiting to be thrown all day, so let’s make with the throwing!”

But Rurita shook her head. “Why do
you want to be thrown so badly?” she asked.

“Because it’s so fun!” said the pillow. “Don’t you know how boring it is to be a
pillow? Just lying here all day and all night, doing nothing at all but
supporting your head when you sleep…do you know how stressful a job that is?
Why don’t you try supporting some
giant’s head every night? Flying through the air is the only thing that
relieves my stress and cures my boredom. Now, please, just do this for me,
Rurita!

“What if I found another way to
relieve your stress and cure your boredom?” asked Rurita, who now felt
incredibly guilty for making the pillow support her head every night. She
thought over all of the things a pillow might like. Finally, she said, “What if
I were to toss you instead of throwing you?”

“Is there any difference?” the
pillow asked.

“Yes,” said Rurita. Then she picked
up the pillow, which shrieked delightedly in anticipation of being thrown
across the room. But instead of throwing it across the room, Rurita tossed it
straight up into the air and caught it coming back down.

“Eeeee!” shrieked the pillow. “Hey,
this is fun! Do it again!”

Rurita tossed the pillow straight up
and caught it a few more times. The pillow shrieked with delight and laughed
and howled each time. “Hey!” cried the pencil on Rurita’s desk. “I wanna try
that! Toss me in the air, Rurita!”

Rurita set the pillow back down.
Then she picked up the pencil, grasped it with one hand, and tossed it straight
up into the air and caught it. “Yeah! Yeah!” cried the pencil. “I love this! Do
it again, do it again!”

Soon every object in Rurita’s room
was begging to be tossed in the air and caught. Rurita was sure she got around
to every object. She tossed each object in the air five times before giving
another object a chance. It took a long time to get around to every object in
the room, but when she finally did, all of the objects were laughing and
cheering and none of them asked to be thrown anymore. They anticipated the next
day, when they would all beg her to toss them again.

Rurita stopped throwing things, and
soon people began to realize they were no longer in danger of having something
flung at them if they hung around with her, and since Rurita was very good
company when she wasn’t throwing things, her group of friends grew and grew.
However, she now had two distinctive behaviors that differed from her twin: the
first one was that she was always picking things up and tossing them up into
the air five times. Anything she laid eyes on, she would toss.

The other was that Lolita slept with
a pillow under her head every night, and though this was something that Rurita
used to do, she didn’t anymore. Rurita didn’t understand how anybody could put
a poor pillow through that.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

After my first and only failed kill (!!!), I crept back
down to that spot by the creek to finish watching Lily pretty up the hole. My
mind was screwed up from the shock of having walked away from a kill. I’m
beginning to wonder if I’m even me anymore—is that girl really a swamp witch,
and did she transform me into somebody else while I wasn’t looking? After I was
all done watching her and came back to my tent, I took a quick look in a
compact mirror I’d stolen off a previous victim and found that I at least still
looked like me. But that doesn’t
necessarily mean I’m still me…

Anyway,
I watched her prettying up that hole for at least another twenty-five minutes,
and then I heard her begin to murmur under her breath. I strained my ears to
hear what she was saying, and when I couldn’t hear from my distance, I silently
crept closer and closer. Don’t turn
around, I silently pleaded. Please,
don’t turn the hell around. If she caught me spying on her, I would be
branded with the Scarlet J for all eternity—J for “jackass.”

Lily
was praying. She was praying for the dead guy, like this was some kind of
memorial service (I’ve never been to a memorial service once, but I know what
goes on at them from TV). She didn’t know his name, had never seen him alive at
any point in her life (or at least, that’s what she told me), and he meant
nothing to her, yet she was praying for him and setting up a makeshift funeral
as if he had been her brother or husband.

What the fuck was wrong with this girl?!

I strolled over there and caught
her by the shoulder. Her praying ceased, and she looked up at me with those
big-ass eyes that I always found quite creepy. “So you do know this guy,” I
told her. I made myself sound very
displeased that she had lied to me, and I was.

She
shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Bullshit,”
I said, giving her a rough shake. “You don’t just pray for people you don’t
know, nor do you cry for them, or make pretty little graves for them…if you
don’t know someone and they’re dead, you leave ‘em alone. That’s what any normal person does, anyhow.” I no longer
cared that she knew I had been spying.

“Like
that’ll do him any good now.” I released her and began to walk away. Lily
returned to her prayer for the dead guy she didn’t know and never would. I
rolled my eyes, finding this to be one of the most ridiculous things I’d ever
seen anybody do.

That’s
when I heard her say, “Oh, and God? About Blade Queen…”

I had
to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. I ran back to the tent
like I had rockets attached to me.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Here's the rest of it. Sorry I'm so late. My sworn brother just got out of surgery and I've been standing by him all day while he recovers.

The tears returned. “All I did was
get drunk! I’ve been drunk before, and nothing like this ever happened! I get
drunk every Saturday night, for Pete’s sake! I’ve never passed out before, but
I know people who have, and nothing like this ever happened to them!” By then I was erupting like a
tear volcano. I sniffled, sobbed, wailed, and even kicked my foot a little when
I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was a mess and Al knew it, which was why he
remained completely silent while I made a spectacle of myself. I’m surprised he
didn’t just roll his stony eyes and walk away. He just stood there and watched
me carry on like a three-year-old child. When I finally calmed down, my dress
was soaked with tears and I had a headache.

Al
laid his rocky hand on my shoulder. “Are you done?”

I
looked up at him and nodded pitifully. I was a mess. I saw him wince when he
saw just how much snot was all over my face.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

I have a terrible terrible migraine right now so the rest of this part will be posted tomorrow. Sorry for any inconvenience. I just wanted to get at least this much up...

“Al!” When I saw that Al hadn’t
moved from where I’d left him, I couldn’t help but run up and hug him. I didn’t
care how much of a tool it made me look like. To my surprise, he returned the
hug. “Well, look who’s back!” he said. My mind was instantly filled with
Eminem’s Without Me. Guess who’s back…Back again…

Al
patted me and gave me a stony smile. “What brings you back, Lynn?”
he asked. I sat at his base. “I tried one of those houses,” I said, “and the
guy there made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. He kept saying ‘Come inside
and we’ll see what we’ll do with you,’ and shit like that. And he called me a
‘pretty bird.’ Yuck!”

“You
don’t like to be told you’re pretty?” Al chided me. “Would you rather be told
you’re ugly?”

“It
was the way he said it, Al,” I said,
still feeling squicked out over it. “Anyway, I didn’t like that guy, and I’m
not too keen on seeing what the others are like. Besides, nobody knows where
Turnersville is. I don’t even think anyone around here has even heard of it.
Have you even heard of it?”

“’Fraid
not.”

“Right,”
I said, sighing. “So how high or low are the chances of me getting out of
here?”

“Do
I look like a mathematician?”

“I don’t know!” I hollered. Normally I
like smartasses, but I was in a state of deep irritation. “I just want to go
home, dammit!”

Blade Queen and Lynn's Trip will be shorter than usual tonight. Sorry about that.

I woke up this morning to find the body gone.

Of course,
Lily’s ditch was the first place I checked. Now
she’s stealing my trophies too. I’m really beginning to curse myself for
ever leaving her alive in the first place, and even further for still refusing
to kill her. I could’ve had it over and done with last night. She was right
there, I had my blade…why didn’t I just jump
on her?!

That girl
was turning me into a complete buffoon. Maybe she was some kind of forest witch
and I was under some screwed up spell. The only way to end the spell was to
kill the witch—but of course, the spell wouldn’t let me kill the witch. It was
the perfect enchantment, the perfect defense mechanism…the only thing that
could do the Forest Devil in was the Forest
Witch…

Oh, for fuck’s sake, look at me rambling. I’m
not even making any sense. I’ve gone completely out of my mind.

Anyway, both
Lily and the body were absent from her ditch, which gave me an uneasy feeling
like you wouldn’t believe. If she wasn’t there, she could be anywhere. She
could be attempting escape!

I palmed my
blade and began the search. If she was attempting escape, I had to kill her.
There was no other option. If she escaped, she would whistleblow to the
authorities and my life was as good as over. The only reason I’m still here is
because the authorities think I’m some kind of malevolent spirit or demon; this
is because the first few investigative teams sent back here all met my blade
before they could do anything. After that, nobody dared to send anybody else
back here. If that girl made her way out of here, the stories of the Forest
Devil would be over and I would be compromised. She had to stay here, dead or
alive. She belonged to me now.

Luckily for
her, I found her out by the creek, setting up some kind of weird rock formations.
Where is my corpse? I thought. I strolled
over to her and stood in front of her, my blade gleaming in my palm.

“What are
you doing?”

She stopped
her work and looked up at me, but didn’t answer. The girl has serious nerve.

“I said, what are you do-ing?”

She
shrugged. “Making something.”

“Where’s the
corpse from last night?” I asked her, smacking the blade handle against my
palm. “If you threw it out, I’ll run you through.”

“I buried
him,” she said “right here.”

She did
what?! “What do you mean, you buried him right here? Who do you think you are
to take my kills and bury them?! Did
you forget whose domain you are in?!”

“No,” she
said “I didn’t. I just thought you were done with him. You kind of just…left
him there. So I buried him and I’m making a grave.”

A grave?
“Did you know this guy, or something? Is that why you were so damn weepy last
night?”

Now I was
getting angry. “Girl, who the hell are you to tell me what I do with my victims?!
I’ve just about had it with you, you know. I make the mistake of keeping you
alive, and you start acting like you own the place!”

“It’s not
like that,” Lily protested. “It’s…”

“Shut up!” I
smacked her across the face. “I should have offed you on day one.” I was
suddenly very aware of the blade in my palm, which meant I must’ve been good
and ready to use it. Finally! I
thought. Finally, I’m going to do it! I
will be rid of this bane on my existence! My heart thumped in excitement,
and I began to smile at the thought of a new kill. I began advancing on her.
She didn’t move, she didn’t even flinch…

Sunday, April 7, 2013

She cleared
out the toxic plants and berries like I told her to do, and I’m not entirely
sure what to feel about that. Is she trying to kill me, or is she not? Does she
want me to kill her, or does she not? I really don’t know what to make of this
chick anymore.

But what I
do know is that, even though she may have screwed it up tremendously, she’s
dedicated more time to me in the space of a morning than anyone had ever done
in my entire life. No one’s ever bothered to cook for me. I always had to feed
myself, even as a little kid. During the rare occasions that my piece of shit
father did cook something, he always messed it up and I always had to redo it
to keep myself from getting goddamn food poisoning. Sometimes I think he messed
it up on purpose.

So a part of
me—that part that just loves to fight my better nature these days—wants to
thank her for at least trying, and for cleaning out the bad plants. But at the
same time, the rest of me is asking that part what the hell is wrong with it
and beating it senseless for its stupidity, because why would I thank her for a half-assed job? Besides, I know her game. I
know why she wants to stay alive so badly. She’s trying to kill me before I
kill her. And I will absolutely not let
that happen!

I’ll bet the
folks at home would be real fucking thrilled with her if she came running back
and told them she’d killed the Forest Devil. Too bad there’s no way in hell
that’s going to happen. Now that I truly know her game, I can’t afford to screw
around anymore. Lily dies tonight.

***

I was sure
to cook us both a breakfast that wouldn’t kill us, as well as lunch and dinner
later on. Luring a victim into a false sense of security isn’t usually my
style, but once in a blue moon I get a victim who doesn’t get to know what’s
coming. She thanked me ever so graciously for each meal, and I didn’t speak a
word to her. At lunch, she picked up on this and began grilling me.

“Not talking
today, Blade Queen?”

Why the hell do you care?

“You’re that pissed off
about the poison plants, huh?”

You have no idea, kid.

“What are you so angry
for if you’re just going to kill me anyway?”

Are you egging me on?

“Do you usually give
the silent treatment to people you’re just going to kill anyway?”

Only those who are a special kind of
screwed. Like you, chick.

“Well, I don’t know how
a killer’s mind works.”

Shut up.

She stayed
away from me for the rest of the day, giving me perfect time to prepare. I
cleaned and sharpened my blade so that it was in the perfect condition for
piercing her jugular—a slow and painful death in a sea of blood was the perfect
fate for the one who dared to stand up to the queen of death. For the rest of
the day I remained in my tent and out of sight, planning the kill out in my
head over and over again, acting it out on some old makeshift dummy dolls I’d
thrown together for the purpose of planning kills. Someone who attempted to
overthrow the queen of blades certainly did not deserve to be made into my midnight snack. I would just dump her into the
Pit when I was done with her.

When night
fell, I was ready to attack. I palmed my blade and headed out for the kill.
Lily was sleeping in her pitiful ditch, and I smiled hungrily. She had no
chance to see it coming! It was perfect!

That’s when it happened: the all too familiar sounds
of rustling in the brush up ahead, too big to be a squirrel or a fox or a
coyote. It was a human, an intruder. A distraction
from my much more important kill!

“Son of a
bitch!” I kicked at the undergrowth and repeatedly smacked the handle of the
blade against my hand. “Damn, damn, damn!”
I would end this one quickly. I made my way through the brush and was on him
like a panther on a rodent in one red hot minute. My blade was at his throat. I
felt the thrill of the kill, that wonderful feeling that I hadn’t felt ever
since Lily came into the picture, and it was enough to make me cry out with
joy. “You don’t belong here, pitiful little man!” I said through my laughter.
“Nobody belongs here but me, and I’ve got much more important things to do than
deal with the likes of you.” I’d intended to snuff him out like the flame of a
candle before he could even process what was going on, but I suppose I just
couldn’t help but fuck around with him a little. I hadn’t gotten to have any
sort of fun in days, and the thought of finally getting back to my old games
was enough to make me forget about the miserable week I’d been having. He
opened his mouth to say something, and I grabbed him by the hair and slammed his
face against the ground until his nose bled. “You will keep your mouth closed,
or your death will be as slow and painful as I can possibly make it,” I said. I
held my blade under his bleeding nose. I caught the blood on my blade and
lapped it up. It tasted like tarnished metal and sweet red liquor.

The cretin
opened his mouth again, and I slapped him hard across the face and made a deep
cut across his left cheek. The blood trickled out, and I squealed for joy and
pressed my lips to his cheek to lap it all up. I finally felt like I was
returning to myself after I’d been acting like such a jackass all week, and the
feeling overwhelmed me. It was simply too much!

I spent the
next few minutes smacking the guy around. I yanked his hair just to hear him
cry out and see the hilarious expressions on his face. I slammed his head
against the ground again. I pinked his face and neck with my blade until he
looked like a bloody slab of meat. I grabbed his arm and forcefully slammed him
into trees or into the ground. And finally, when I had had enough fun with this
guy, I grabbed him and held him in a vicegrip. He was hyperventilating so fast
I thought his lungs would come bursting out of his chest like in a zany
cartoon. I flipped him over, then drove my blade as far as it would go into his
chest, twisting it around so I could hear it squish everything around in there.
I kept digging until I was sure I had reached his heart, then expelled the
blade. My first successful kill in ages was a beautiful one!

I threw his
body to the ground and examined him for anything I might like. He had nothing
in his pockets, and his shirt and sweatshirt were hideous. But I liked his
coat. Winter was fast approaching, and I would need a new coat. I plucked it
off of him and leaned in to get a taste of the aftermath of the kill.

I was
nibbling away at the flesh I’d left on his chest when I heard the brush
rustling behind me. Two victims in one
night? I thought. Hell yes! I
palmed my blade and whirled around, and then realized that I had completely
forgotten about Lily.

She was
staring me down. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her lips were pressed
tightly together, and her body looked as rigid as the corpse I had just been
dealing with. Her ghost-white face looked even creepier illuminated by the
milky rays of the moonlight. She opened her mouth and let out a cry that
sounded like a mouse’s squeak. I abandoned the body and approached her.

“What do you
want from me, girl?”

Now that I
was right in her face, I could see the tears—her eyes were running like water
faucets, and somehow that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I began to
shake, and I hugged myself to hide it, pretending that I was just cold. “So
you’re crying, huh?”

She didn’t
say a word.

“You knew
what I was capable of. This almost happened to you. It still can one day. Are
you now having second thoughts about your cavalier attitude towards your
impending death?”

No response.

“I am the
queen of blades,” I went on. “I’m the harbinger of death. The grim reaper. Most
say I’m a monster. Some say I’m a malevolent, hateful entity. A few even say
that I’m the devil. You must’ve heard at least one of the legends about this
forest. You know nobody who goes in ever comes out, and now you know why. Are
you really that surprised about it?”

No response.
Why couldn’t I stop shaking?

“Aren’t you
going to say something?”

She turned
and walked away. I followed her like a fox stalking its prey, making sure she
wouldn’t attempt to run away. She didn’t, though. She just climbed back into
the ditch and curled up under the sweatshirt and the flimsy blanket I had given
her.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

The stone was very round, very
white, very speckled, and looked like the egg of a very large bird that lays
round, white, speckled eggs.

But this was not an egg. It was a
stone.

Maki picked up the stone and examined
it thoroughly. He stared at it and turned it over and over in his hand. It felt
hard and very rough, and a bit of it crumbled into gravel in his hand as he
felt at it. He touched one of the speckles and it rubbed off like it was done
with paint.

Maki came to the only logical
conclusion: “Whoa, I found an egg!”

He looked all around for nearby
nests. He went down on all fours and crawled around on the ground, looking
under rocks and peering into bushes, to see if any had fallen somewhere. When
he found none, he climbed every tree that he could find. He found plenty of
nests up there: nests with sky blue eggs and nests with smooth grey eggs, nests
with dingy brown eggs and nests with tawny yellow eggs. But he did not find any
nests with round, white, speckled eggs.

Maki was disappointed not to have
found the egg’s rightful nest, and he knew what he now had to do. He slipped
the egg into his jeans pocket, where it would be warm, and clapped his hand
over it for extra warmth. He didn’t know the first thing about hatching an egg,
but he knew somebody who did: his friend Blaze, who tended a farm and spent
each spring hatching chicken and turkey eggs.

Maki took the round, white speckled
egg from his pocket to show it to Blaze. “I need to hatch this egg,” he told
her. “Can you tell me how?”

Blaze gave Maki’s egg a good long
look. She took it and turned it over and over in her hand. Finally, she said,
“Maki, this is a rock.”

Maki raised an eyebrow. “No, it’s
not,” he said. “It’s an egg. It’s some bird’s egg and I need to hatch it.”

“This is not an egg, Maki,” Blaze
said. She handed it to him. “Feel it. It’s too heavy to be an egg, and the
texture is way too rough. It looks a
bit like an egg, but it’s very obviously a rock.”

“Blaze,” Maki said, “I know what a
rock looks like and I know what an egg looks like. This is not a rock, this is
an egg. A bird dropped it and if I don’t hatch it, the chick is going to die.
You hatch chicks all the time, Blaze. I know you don’t want a dead chick on
your conscience.”

Blaze shook her head. “My conscience
will be clear, because there won’t be any dead chick, because that is not an egg!”

“Blaze!” Maki was beginning to grow
very impatient with her. “Just tell me how to hatch the freaking egg!”

“I can’t tell you how to hatch a
freaking rock!” Blaze was beginning to grow impatient with Maki as well. “It’s
a rock, Maki! It doesn’t hatch! I know what an egg looks like. I’ve worked with
eggs all my life. That is a rock. Apparently your head is also a rock, because
you just don’t seem to get that!”

Maki was searching his mind for an
insult to throw at Blaze when her youngest sister, Chika, walked by on her way
to the barn to milk the cows. “Hi there, Maki!” she said, giving him a big
friendly smile that showed all of her teeth. Chika was always smiling. Her
smiles were always friendly and always showed all of her pretty white teeth.
Seeing Chika smile caused Maki to forget his insult for Blaze. “Hello, Chika,”
he said. “Would you like to see the egg I found?”

Chika jumped up excitably. “You
found an egg?”

“Don’t worry about it, Chika,” Blaze
said. “He’s just trying to troll. His ‘egg’ is just an old rock he found on the
ground somewhere. It only looks like an egg.”

“Show me!” Chika cried. “I want to
see a rock that looks like an egg!”

Maki showed Chika the rock. Perhaps
Chika would understand that it really was an egg, and not a rock.

But Chika said, “Oh! That’s a pretty
rock! Where did you find it, Maki?”

Maki sighed in exasperation. “It’s
not a rock, Chika,” he told her. “It’s an egg, and your sister won’t tell me
how to hatch it because she doesn’t think it’s an egg. And obviously you’re not
going to tell me either, because you don’t think it’s an egg either. Whatever,
I’ll go look it up on the Internet, then.”

But Chika said, “Wait. Give the egg
to me, and I’ll see if I can hatch it. If it hatches, we’ll know it’s a real
egg.”

Blaze was annoyed. “Feel it, Chika,”
she said. “It feels nothing like an egg. It feels like a rock.”

Chika took the rock from Maki. It
really did feel like a rock. “We’ll try it anyway,” she said. “Let me hold on
to the rock, and we’ll see if it’s a rock or an egg in a few weeks.”

Maki said goodbye to Blaze and asked
her to say hello to her other sister, Ken, for him. Then he walked off,
imagining what sort of cool-looking bird would hatch out of his egg.

Blaze just shook her head.

Chika set up the egg in an egg
incubator.

Her sister Ken caught her at this.
“Chika,” she said, “you know you shouldn’t play with the egg incubator.”

“I’m not playing with it,” Chika
told her. “I’m doing something for Maki. He’s very convinced that this rock is an
egg, and I told him if it doesn’t hatch then it must be a rock.”

But Ken didn’t like this. They might
need the egg incubator to tend to a reluctant egg or a sick newborn chick. They
couldn’t use it to play with rocks. “You can’t use the egg incubator for that,
Chika,” Ken said, removing the rock from the incubator. “You tell Maki to take
back his rock.”

Chika giggled. “All right,” she
said. “He was probably just trying to troll anyway.” She asked Ken to drive her
to Maki’s to give back the rock.

“Chika, did you even try to hatch
it?”

Maki was very disappointed in Chika,
and in Ken too. He was beginning to feel like the three of them only cared
about chickens and turkeys. They didn’t care about the fate of this innocent
baby bird that would die without even getting to see the world outside of its
egg. Chika giggled. “I’m sorry, Maki, but Ken wouldn’t let me put it in the
incubator. She took it out and told me you need to take it back.”

Maki put his palm to his forehead.
“Do you all even care about any bird that’s not a chicken or a turkey?!”

“Maki,” Ken said, “you had your fun.
It was a funny joke, and you can stop now. Take back your weird looking rock.”

“I’m not joking!” Maki cried. “It’s
not a rock! It’s an egg! An egg! And
now whatever is in it is going to die!”

“You’re insane!” Ken cried. She
grabbed the rock and threw it at Maki’s feet…

…and something went cr-aaaack!

The three of them jumped. They looked down at
Maki’s feet.

Sitting there with its tiny new
wings curled around the tip of Maki’s shoe was a baby phoenix. The gravelly
remains of the white, round, speckled rock were sticking to its downy feathers
and lying in places near Maki’s feet.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

8. Sometimes
families just don’t work out, but when they don’t, you’re allowed to find a new
one.

7. Adulthood is an
addition, not a means of elimination.

6. What “maturity”
truly means, and you don’t need to stop being a child to start being an adult.

5. The actions of a
bully are never your fault, including when the bully is somebody in your family.

4. The true meaning
of “unconditional love.”

3. What it really
means to be a family.

2. How to save a
life.

1. What it truly
means to have a purpose in life and to be a good person.

I am truly sorry to
have neglected my blog over the last two weeks. This is a list of the things
that I’ve realized in those past two weeks while I was unfortunately forced to
leave my blog. To make up for the downtime, I will be updating the blog with
new things once a day for the next week (today till next Wednesday). New Lynns
and Blade Queens will be added on the weekends as is the usual.

About Me

I'm Star Nova, and I like to tell stories. This blog used to be more topical, but then just became a place where I could easily hold my stories. I have several short stories and two big works in progress, as well as some old crap and some pending revisions OF some old crap.
I write in order to share how I see the world, from my own perspective. If you're here, you're probably here from Tumblr or Twitter. I hope you like my stories. And if you don't, I hope you at least read them before you decide that. (: